December 24, 2006

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like ...

December 18, 2006

What's a barista really worth?

I once befriended an Australian who offered me a place to stay and a job in his country if I ever decided to come and work there for a while. Perhaps I should have taken him up on it? Link:

It's the mark of a successful barista in a profession that has come of age. A first-rate barista knows customers by name and coffee of choice and juggles hundreds of hand-crafted beverages each day.

In Italy, the average age of a barista is 48. It's not a job for an eager student who will disappear at the earliest opportunity but an exalted career. In Sydney, a top barista can earn about $100,000 and in Melbourne, well, rates aren't necessarily that generous but we love them anyway.

That comes to about $78,000 in US dollars. Even assuming that particular figure is an extreme outlier, baristi are pulling in more money in Australia than they are here. Why? (Seriously, for my own benefit, why?)

Part of the answer has to be a more developed cafe culture. If metropolitan Australian consumers are more particular than their American counterparts (arguably true), employing skilled baristi there will be more important for attracting customers. Talent becomes relatively more essential compared to location, price, etc. Yet this doesn't seem to make such a large difference between, say, DC and Seattle.

Perhaps in Australia the position of barista tends to be more specialized than in the US. It seems most American coffee shops have a fairly flat hierarchy, with most employees doing a little of everything. If good Australian shops tend to have more specialization of roles, it could be that baristi take a larger share of wages than their non-barista colleagues while keeping average cafe wage rates not terribly different than they are in the US. I have no idea if Australian shops actually are more hierarchical, however.

A different article complaining about the "rock star" mentality among Aussie baristi suggests that a shrinking supply of labor in the service industry is part of the explanation for the higher pay:

Restaurant & Catering Association chief executive John Hart said a 21 per cent drop in the number of employed hospitality workers, compared with a sharp rise in the number of businesses, was affecting the quality of service.

The national body had 249,000 employed members in 2003 compared with 196,000 in 2006, while the number of businesses rose from 29,000 to 37,000 in the same period. Wage costs increased by 10.8 per cent a year over the past four years, he said.

So while Australian baristi make more than their American counterparts, it's not obvious they're making that much more than Australian bartenders, waiters, and others in the service industry.

I'm similarly skeptical of the way we romanticize lifelong Italian baristi. Do those 48 year old men really keep making coffee because it's an exalted position, or because the Italian economy just doesn't offer many great alternatives?

It's common in the American coffee industry to complain that if shops here don't start paying their baristi better, quality will always be an issue. Smart, passionate people with a love for coffee aren't going to stay in jobs that don't give them a good living.

True enough, but it may be a while before significantly higher wages for talented baristi become practical here. Australia seems to have the perfect combination of many demanding consumers and few skilled service workers. In the US, most consumers aren't particular and there's a ready supply of transient workers seeking coffee gigs while they wait for something better or find themselves.

As much as I'd like to argue for higher barista pay, I'm not convinced the economics of it make sense for many American shops right now beyond some premiums for skill and longevity. Consumer education strikes me as the larger priority. When Americans demand more from their coffee, perhaps then we'll see barista wages rise to compensate talent in a discerning market. Until then, "career barista" will be a tough path to follow.

December 14, 2006

Coffee as gift

Got a coffee lover on your list of people to shop for this month? The 2006 Counter Culture Holiday Blend would make a worthy gift. We rolled it out in place of our house blend at Baked and Wired today and were delighted with its dark chocolate taste and lingering sweetness. Counter Culture's notes call it reminiscent of Black Forest cake, which seems an apt description. I don't usually get excited about blends, but I was sipping this one all morning even though a great single origin sat nearby.

The blend features beans from Zaragoza, Mexico, Bufundu, Rwanda, and Jaen, Peru. Ten percent of proceeds from the coffee go toward buying cows for the Rwandan community of Humure. Learn more about the blend -- and purchase it if you like -- here.

December 7, 2006

Working At a Starbucks -- Parum pa pum pum

I'm working at a Starbucks (because Peet's doesn't have wireless). For about an hour they were playing classical Christmas music, but they just put on "parum pa pum pum again." I can not STAN parum pa pum pum.
Rum pa pum pum
Rum pa pum pum

Sheesh. Gotta go. It's beginning to look a lot like working at home for the next three weeks.

LuLu Carpenter's in Santa Cruz

caffeinated rantings: Lulu Carpenter's takes a look at one of my very favorite coffee houses. The old saying: don't believe everything you read. Many a blog post has been using their wireless, while sipping a decaf soy latte or decaf soy chai.

And read the comments as Manthi - the owner - gets into it with blogger Timmy.